I TRIED TO ESCAPE WITH Aquaman and the Sea Devils into a cavernous underwater world for several weeks, but the loud voices from the kitchen only followed me all those thousands of leagues beneath the sea. Irma eventually got her money—Mom saw to that. The hurricane shutters came down from over the windows, gradually. First it was my room. Then, a week later, their bedroom and the front room. I was working out in our field with Evan so much I was too tired to do much of anything when I came home. I’d climb into bed with a comic book and stay there for the remainder of the night.
Over the course of those weeks, Mom brought dozens of books home from the library. There had been enough money left over after we made good on a bunch of unpaid bills for her to buy me my own dictionary. She told me I could write in it and everything. So that was nice. Mom liked to write in books. Didn’t matter if it was a mystery novel or a history book; she’d write in the margins like it was her story to change willy-nilly, however she saw fit. In her version of things, it was never the butler who did it. One of the books she brought home was a slave narrative. I looked at it askance. When I asked what the heck she’d picked out that one for, she just gave me one of her looks. I wasn’t sure what it had to do with me exactly. I was puzzled, but I cracked it open anyway. I flipped through it and saw that it was too difficult for me. I picked out a random word and asked, What the hell does ostracize mean? Jesus Christ. It was a grown-up book, and I didn’t understand half the words. She handed me the dictionary. Turns out she actually expected me to use it. So I had no choice but to read the slave book. In the end, I didn’t write in the dictionary much at all. I preferred it clean and untarnished, the way I’d found it. But I did look up a bunch of words. When I finished the book, I just kind of sat there studying the cover. I wasn’t sure if it was uplifting or depressing.
It took Mom a couple of weeks more before she came home with something on George Washington Carver. She lamented that it was even possible for me, the son of a Georgia peanut farmer, to not know who he was. She had been hinting that there was this man that she wanted me to read about. She’d been looking for something on him for weeks, trying to dig something up for me, but had difficulty finding anything about him in our local library, or even at the branch in Blakely. She finally managed to arrange it through her church to get something delivered on loan, brought down from some fancy library collection in Albany. Imagine—a book traveled all that way just to be in my hands! So of course I read that one. Anyway, I’d never heard of the man. Apparently, he was quite an accomplished scientist. Fascinating stuff, really. Curious choice for me personally, only because when she’d hinted that she was bringing home something on a scientist for me, I expected her to bring something on someone like Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison. I mean, really. Carver was interesting, but compared to those guys he was a nobody. I mean, he wasn’t even the least bit famous.
There were lots of peanuts around our house during the month of August. Mom would spend nights cooking and boiling them, and Dad would station me by the side of Oglethorpe with scale, scoop, and bushel baskets of them to sell during the day. When harvest wound down, Mom and I worked together on math problems in the kitchen. She continued making regular trips back and forth to the library. I’d spend my mornings collecting seeds out back, studying the beetles and bugs around our house, and in the evenings I would rack my brain over my times tables at the kitchen table while Mom was at the sink, emptying the boiled peanuts into a colander. When the last of the water had drained, she would empty the peanuts into a grocery bag, dump in some salt, and shake the bag. We seemed to be getting into a new routine of doing things.
Then, one night, I was on the floor in my room working on a list of birds, beetles, and worms that I’d spotted on our grounds when Mom barged in and snatched the pencil out of my hand. She was bawling. I looked up and asked why. She just handed me a suitcase and told me to pack my things.
Is Dad coming?
No.
Is it something I did?
No.
Which I doubted. Whenever they argued, it always had something to do with me.
Where are we going?
On a little trip.
To Missus Muncie’s?
No. Maybe a motel or something. I dunno. Ask me later.
When are we coming back?
Soon. Now hurry up.
Mom left the room. I sat there for a minute, quiet. I put my list aside and pulled open the top drawer of my dresser and shoved a handful of T-shirts, some comic books, and my home-run ball into the suitcase. I latched it shut and tried my best to hold back any tears. I was becoming quite a pro at that. I gathered up my jeans and high-tops and poked around under my bed for some socks.
I turned around at the door and, before closing it behind me, said goodnight to Snowflake. I didn’t have the heart to go over to her cage and tell her what was happening. I felt it would be easier for her this way. I knew that it would be the end of her if I went over to her cage and broke the news to her face. She was much too sensitive for that. She’d be in pieces, and I wasn’t sure she’d be able to put herself back together. So I just mumbled something about how important it was not to be afraid of the unknown and left. Dad had been avoiding me. When I cornered him in the bathroom, he explained how much he wished that he could come, but that someone had to take care of the farm. I told him to just stop, because I knew all that. I just wanted to be sure that he took good care of Snowflake while I was gone.
It was dark out when I stepped out of the house. I remember the sound of the crickets and the smell of boiled peanuts coming from the kitchen as I waited out on the stoop for Mom. I got into the truck with a sickly feeling in my stomach. The steel-belted radials Dad had bought made a distinct hissing sound. A blinking yellow light hung above an empty intersection in town. The eight-o’clock bus was sitting in front of the Rexall. I’d seen that bus pass through town my whole life, never dreaming that I’d one day be on it.
We weren’t the only ones there. Missus Smeel was sitting on one of the shell-backed chairs, waiting for the driver to open the door. Dad stood by quietly as she told Mom about how she was off to visit a nephew a few towns over, in Rowena, who wasn’t doing so well. He was sick. It wasn’t clear what he had, so she wasn’t sure how long she would be gone. All she knew was that she was going to stay until he got better. Mom smiled politely.
The driver opened the bus door at eight sharp. I grabbed a window seat and pressed my lips into a smile as I looked out at Dad. He was blurry. I was afraid that if I closed my eyes, the image of him standing there curbside, shouting out to me how much he loved me, would disappear forever. It was a strange feeling, him standing there looking at me like that, talking to me through the glass, telling me to be sure to brush twice a day. And to eat all my collard greens. And not to worry about Snowflake because he’d take care of her just fine—would even send me pictures. And to be sure to behave. And do as Mom instructed. And not to worry because he’d write tons and we’d talk on the phone all the time.
We pulled away. Dad grew small in the distance, then was gone. My stomach was knotted so tight it hurt. Cordele Road was unfamiliar and new in the dark. It seemed much smaller and narrower, somehow. Or maybe that was just the effect of the wall of darkness on either side of us. There was only the bright glare of the bus’s headlights and the soft glow of the occasional streetlamp. Then the streetlamps tapered off and disappeared, and we were flanked by immense tracts of inky nothingness. A stretch of pines converged high above, and it felt like we had entered a tunnel. The smell of clover and milkweed seeped in amid the sound of hissing tires, and the wet asphalt reflected the soft glow of the occasional streetlamp.
Mom asked how I was doing. I smeared the tears from my face and didn’t answer. She said she understood. I wasn’t so sure. Up until then I had thought that we were just going to spend the night at Miss Della’s or something—that we’d be gone for a week at the most. But as the bus rolled farther and farther away from Dad, I felt as if someone were pulling my heart out of my chest. Then we turned onto a highway bathed in the glare of sodium-vapor lights. I looked up at Mom. I had no idea where we were going and was too afraid to ask.